WHAT: The Berry Center Farm & Forest Institute offers farmers an education in agrarian thought and practice. We provide affordable workshops, short-courses, and field days that accommodate busy lives. Hands-on classes focus on:

• Farm Management

• Woodland Management

• Culture of Agriculture

As one of the four branches of The Berry Center, our Kentucky-based program applies Wendell Berry’s writing to learning. It serves early career and experienced farmers, generational farm families, woodland owners, and rural community members.

WHO: Farmers and people who depend on working lands take our classes, including: experienced & early-career farmers, mid- and small-scale farmers, agriculture professionals & educators, conservation workers & naturalists, land managers & woodland owner, foresters & forest technicians, blacksmiths & woodworkers, aspiring & seasoned draft animal teamsters, chefs & butchers.

People who support farmers and good land use also take our classes, including: teachers, students, ministers, gardeners, artists, writers, factory workers, veterans, public servants, attorneys, accountants, bankers, health care workers.

Classes equip people to use what they learn in their own lives and for their own communities, rural and urban alike. Our neighbors from Henry County and throughout Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, Virginia, and Tennessee work and learn with people from every region of the United States and beyond.

Participants can learn to:

• take an inventory of assets (economic, personal, natural, community)

• conduct production & infrastructure planning and budgeting

• implement livestock farming that connects soil, water, plants, & animals

• use practical, safe, and low-cost forestry skills

• select appropriate production scale

• locate and evaluate resources

• describe their roles in agricultural history

• contribute to The Berry Center’s farmer and rural advocacy work